


A Wider World

by Soubrettina



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2054781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soubrettina/pseuds/Soubrettina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About a week after summer came back, Elsa is almost okay, and starting to have new thoughts about the future..... It's just the 'almost' bit that gets in the way</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wider World

I suppose it was bound to come back again, sooner or later.

I was alone in my own room again- the door was locked, the light coming through the window was so dull with fog it really might have been any hour when I heard it: the tap at the door and

_"Elsa? D'you wanna build a snowman?"_

_No, Anna,_ I told her. _We can't._ There was frost- or something- creeping under the door. The handle rattled.

_"Elsa? There's nobody else left, Elsa. Come and play with me."_

_Please Anna, I told her. You don't understand._

The door shook, and through it I could see her shadow. The handle was starting to glow blue.

 _"Elsa? Let me in, Elsa!"_ I could feel tears warm on my face, and the air seemed thick and hard to breathe.

 _I'm sorry, Anna- I'm so sorry! Please, Anna, go to rest, I'm so sorry, I am-_ The door opened, filling the room with snow-blind light, the little shadow silhouetted-

I sat up with a start, and it was far darker, and hotter, and I was lying in bed- and, oh, the top quilt and the pillow were frozen solid. With a couple more deep breaths I realised I was not in the room with the south window that smelled of frost, lavender and akevit (don't ask), but in the room with the east window that smelled of rosewater and soap, with a faint undertone of honest sweat. And when my eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light, I could see the bed on the far side of the room and Anna, fully-grown Anna, lying spreadeagled on her back and snoring like it was going out of fashion (which had to be real, I don't believe I'd dream her like that.)

My stomach was still shaky and it was tempting, very tempting, to run over to her and climb under the blankets: _"Anna, Anna, I'm frightened, I had a bad dream where you died again Anna..."_ It was not that she would mind. It was her idea to put my bed back in here in the first place ('just for now'- of course I knew about that 'now', I knew how it could stretch out with infinite flexibility: just for now we would close up the gates, just for now I would carry on as if Papa were still here- but just now, we were happy. Sooner or later either we would get tired of it or Anna would marry somebody or other- why refuse to be happier together, just for now?). The fact was, the evening of the day when summer came back, we didn't part for the rest of the day (on that point I'm certain, although much of that evening is a little hazy) and when I fell asleep on Anna's bed, she left me there, and, four days later, I was still there. But just now, I decided not to wake her. I would see how long I could go without that.

It's not easy to untuck a frozen quilt, though I had done it before. It used to be that the only thing to do about it was to prop it up near the fire to thaw (so in the morning it would be soaking, and I would try to banish from my mind what the servants must have thought). I had so much hoped those days were over. It seemed I was still not so strong alone in the dark. I gave the quilt a shake and tried to take control of the ice in it- but the chill of the dream was still upon me, and it only crackled. Oh, I had thought I had an answer, and now here I was again! In my mind I knew what to look for, that light, warm, happy feeling when Anna had said 'I love you' with all but a shrug of innocent surprise at my not knowing something obvious. I tried to hear it again, but the feeling wasn't coming.

Now that I was awake, I found the room still hot and airless- the fabulous azure summer had come back round again full force, and there seemed no end in sight to the 'stop-weather' of the last few days. It was beautiful, but it seemed to be baking the air solid and dead (I admit that this may be an ice-witch thing. I have some faint memory of lying in the shade of a tree complaining that I didn't want to take a walk, I was too hot- I was probably too young to know the word 'oppressive'- to Mama, and that she was wearing a woollen cloak at the time).

I went over to the window and managed to get it open- it was still hot outside but the fainted breeze was rising from the fjord. The sky was already becoming faintly blue, with a band of white on the skyline, and while the mountains were still black silhouettes, the water was taking on the colour of polished steel. Golden lanterns dotted the harbour, even at this hour. Maybe I imagined that the scent of the breeze was of the deep pine forests, of the colour of the snowmelt rivers, or of the buttercup grass of the sunny valleys- Arandelle- my beautiful Arandelle, every thundering blue rapid, every mountain scraping the sky, every white waterfall plunging from the heavens and every green glacier that fed it, every mysterious sliver-walled gorge; every flake of sparkling snow and every calf blinking in the midnight sun, every blade of grass, _my kingdom, mine._

By the time the refection in the fjord was becoming blue, I had managed to make my bed again, and had managed to persuade Anna- by tickling an outflung foot- to turn over so that she was a little quieter. I’d also trodden painfully on Anna’s hairbrush, mysteriously left at the end of my bed, and found one of her shoes underneath there with her green ribbon curled up inside when I picked the brush up.

Anna, of course, had got a better look at the country than I had- neither outward or back had I been there at the right moment to take in the view. Little Anna! Thirteen years of keeping her safe at home, shut away in dread of hurting her, our fear of her frailty drawing tight the limits of her whole world and within one day she was out riding in waist-deep snow, fighting wolves and at least trying to climb the North Mountain. And that was only the second or third reason that I was so proud of her. (All the more so for how little I had contributed to her becoming that wonderful young woman, my poor darling.)

Feeling lighthearted, but still wide awake, I started tracing the outline of the mountains in frost on the window. I wondered if I might learn to paint- then I might at last go to see the country first-hand; there had never been any question of watercolours before. Even the gallery I had seen little of, since Anna seemed to like amusing herself in there.

She had spent all her life looking at the same collection, in fact. And there was much to be said for the royal collection of Arandelle, but, well, there were more than eighty-four paintings in the world, and yes, Arandelle had its traditions, but it was a small population, supported no full-sized universities and, yes, I will admit, hadn't exported a school of art for at least a thousand years. Artists who went off to Prussia and changed their subjects and their accents, yes. _It is a small country, yes._ What it had was enough status that a princess of Arandelle had every right to be received abroad to see the art of other nations. Oh yes, of course. What better way to give Anna the bigger world that she needed now? A grand tour. Corona, she seems to have much in common with Rapunzel. Florence, that would show her art beyond her wildest dreams. Weimar, every time I heard Weimar mentioned it sounded more fascinating. Paris, oh surely she would love the ballet. I'd seen the engravings. England, because one couldn't ignore it- it would be worth reminding Victoria of our existence. Oh, yes, it would be perfect. Whether she had found the right match this time or not, I suspected she would not marry for at least another year; and going as far as Corona might absorb at least a little of even Anna's energy. What a difference it would make to her!

I had already started trying to count out in my head how long she would want in Weimar when it occurred to me to wonder whether any change needed to be made to Anna at all. It also occurred to me that I hadn't asked Anna about it yet, hadn't even suggested it yet- and how was I to say to her, that I thought it was a good idea for her to go abroad for several months?

Because it occurred to me that it really could not sound how I wished it to: _"Wait, what? All those years of shutting me out, then after a week of hugging me and telling me how fond you are of me, now you want to send me away? You're tired of me already? What do I have to do, Elsa? You still don't even want to share a country with me? I can't believe you! This is too much, even for you! I can't take this any more! I can't give you any more, you've pushed me away for this last time!"_

And it was after that that I saw it- the great grey wave swallowing the ship without trace (did it hurt? Did they know it was coming? Was the cabin swamped at once, or did it fill up slowly?), taking Anna to the bottom of the sea forever. Anna laid on her bed in a foreign land with her face blue as she succumbed to cholera in Rome. Being carried home early to waste away from consumption caught from some wavy-haired composer. Anna succumbing to the mysterious fainting sickness of the Uffizi Gallery (if I had remembered that right). And England- the railways. They crashed, at forty miles an hour, all the time!

I realised that I couldn't see out of the window for frost. Oh not again! I had thought it was over now! I had thought I could control myself, and touch anything, like a proper human being who could be a part of the shared world! I thought I had got strong enough! When the tears started pouring down my face it crossed my mind to wonder how, should I wake Anna, I would best explain them. Was _I thought I could stop making a mess of everything at last and one wrong thought and I'm back to the beginning_ any more sane than _I was afraid that you were going to get killed in at least six different ways on the tour that I'm never going to let you go on?_

She would, I suppose, point out that nobody can get killed in six different ways. (Unless, of course, they are extraordinary enough to fight their way back from having every sign of having been dead.) And she wouldn't be afraid. She really wouldn't.

And I managed to pull the frost off the window. I couldn't quite get rid of it, but I managed to pull it into a crystal in my hand, and by and by I managed to shape it- at first I tried a rose, but I remembered Mama teaching meanings of flowers, and in the end I changed it- an iris: faith, hope and valour.

I crept over and laid it beside Anna's bed- I tried not to wake her but she must have at least been half-aware I was there, for she rolled over again, flung an arm over her face and said:

"The _herrings_ , Kristoff, they're all drunk!"

"They'll have to sleep it off," I said, and went back to my own bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Akevitt, for those who don't know, is the traditional spirit alcohol of Sweeden and Norway (akvavit in Sweedish, sometimes Anglicised to aquavit); it's barley whisky infused with caraway. If the hot water you have to wash with keeps icing up, adding alcohol will give it a much lower freezing point.
> 
> 'Stop-weather' is a Norwegian expression for days with no rain or snow.


End file.
